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elric

8,779 karmajoined 7 years ago
Curious software engineer with an interest in the human body, human rights & privacy in particular. Occasionally more snarky than desired. More questions than answers.

Pardon my typos, touchscreens and sausage fingers are the spawn of the devil.

Blog: https://blog.melnib.one

Submissions

Ask HN: How do you defend against supply chain attacks today?

5 points·by elric·2 months ago·4 comments

Multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland

lists.x.org
3 points·by elric·8 months ago·1 comments

State of the European Union 2025

commission.europa.eu
5 points·by elric·10 months ago·2 comments

comments

elric
·3 days ago·discuss
90-95k would be impossibly high in Belgium, which is but a stone's throw away from Germany. If that isn't enough money to save, you're doing something very wrong, or your idea of a cheap city might differ from mine.
elric
·5 days ago·discuss
Everyone is falling over themselves out of FOMO.
elric
·9 days ago·discuss
You find it strange that people have preferences? The ultimate ergonomic keyboard is the one that feels good *for you*.

I don't like the Ergodox-style keyboards myself because they're missing a row, and no amount of meta layering is going to convince me otherwise.
elric
·9 days ago·discuss
Kinesis Freestyle Gaming for me. The "traditional" Freestye has a wrist pad that's made out of a material so horrible I returned the keyboard immediately. Yuck. This was years ago, maybe newer models are better? But I'm very happy with the Freestyle Gaming in general.
elric
·11 days ago·discuss
From what I remember from an interview with the rabbi in question, the "oral suction" was not involved in this case. But because these procedures are being performed illocitly, it is hard to know what's going on or how sanitary it is.
elric
·11 days ago·discuss
That isn't even the point though. The circumcision itself is perfectly legal in Belgium. The legal issue is with the lack of qualifications of the ones performing them in this case.
elric
·11 days ago·discuss
I hope the journalists in question will lodge a complaint with the Belgian police watchdog, Comité P: https://comitep.be

Belgium has been pretty repressive towards certain journalists for a while now. Our "World Press Freedom Index"-score has gone down a fair bit in recent years, and rightly so. The current prime minister and his friends have a history of litigating against journalists who exposed some questionable deals, so it's all to be expected.
elric
·11 days ago·discuss
For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.
elric
·11 days ago·discuss
I agree with the theory, but I guarantee you that in practice the vast majority of orgs are storing way more data than they should.
elric
·12 days ago·discuss
Under GDPR, you have the right to request manual processing whenever personal data is processed automatically to make a decision about you that has "significant impact". Not being hired seems like it would qualify.
elric
·13 days ago·discuss
Yes, EP has rejected it, and now the president of the EP is ignoring that outcome.
elric
·13 days ago·discuss
Never been ID checked at a bar in my life. The whole concept is alien to me.
elric
·13 days ago·discuss
This is going to further increase anti-EU sentiment. This is unacceptable behaviour, but no politician is ever going to experience any negative consequences over this because they're so very far removed from the democratic process.
elric
·15 days ago·discuss
Surely "only for humans" is the obvious default given that there were no AI megacorps when these licenses were written?

Surely it's always been obvious that the person doing the sharing is the one to decide on the terms of the sharing? Maybe I want to share my cake with you but not with someone I don't like? How is that not my decision to make?

I'm absolutely fine with people having different sharing philosophies. Different licenses with different nuances are a thing. But I don't like this take that everything that was shared is automatically retconned to be included in AI training data. That's not the spirit in which I shared my stuff. Maybe that's the spirit in which you shared yours, and I respect that.
elric
·15 days ago·discuss
I've been considering doing the same (going back to uni, not moving to Barcelona). But I find the choices are overwhelming, and the time investment is no joke.
elric
·16 days ago·discuss
What a load of crock.

FOSS licenses were obviously written in the spirit of sharing with humans. Some later licenses made the license less amenable for sharing with corporations because some authors didn't feel like they were being treated fairly. Some authors today have similar feelings about their code being used by Gen AI. It is perfectly fine for authors to want to place restrictions on how they want others to use their work.

> Step out of the FOSS swamp, step in to human dignity.

What is that even supposed to mean?
elric
·17 days ago·discuss
Same in Belgium. Easy peasy. Took no time at all.
elric
·19 days ago·discuss
They're probably not being sarcastic. Wrong, and ppssibly evil, but not sarcastic. There are some weirdly big Palantir fans on HN. No clue what drives them, but I'm guessing they're not keen students of history.
elric
·20 days ago·discuss
No X rays are involved in MRI.
elric
·20 days ago·discuss
And you're saying that's not scary?